Local

A large fan whirred nearby as firefighters worked to clear a thin haze from a monogram business minutes after a small electrical fire Wednesday, July 31.
The large contingent of firefighters, along with several ladder trucks, turned up in force at about 4 p.m. outside Maple Street Monograms, 1329 S.C. 9 Bypass.
Several county Fire Service pickups also dotted the parking lots of surrounding businesses, with their red lights blazing, as fire officials set up staging areas to respond.

Jim Beasley, a spokesman with S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control, has confirmed that the local department, 1833 Pageland Highway, has lost seven administrative positions.

The Lancaster News recently heard rumors of a change. An anonymous caller last week told the newspaper seven of the health department’s employees had their jobs affected. The woman said that of those seven employees, three decided to retire while the other four are being transferred to Richland County.

Despite mixed results among county schools under the state’s new letter grade method of representing progress toward federal Secondary Education Act (ESEA) scores, the Lancaster County School District, as a whole, continued to perform above both federal and state expectations.

The data was released by the state Department of Education Thursday, Aug. 1.